making morter

Morter is made from a black sandy but slightly wet substance,added to water it becomes mortor.There is lime in the mix and cement,but I allways mixed in cement and a little uni-bond .This last to make it water proof,and to give it a nice consistancy.I mixed it for brick or concrete block layers.They can be a funny lot who have thier own indivual preferance of mix.They don"t take long about telling the poor atendant what they want.getting the mix just right is his first task.Cement is mostly lime,and pollybond or uni-bond is a water based glue.Sand and cement mix is mostly used for plastering.A plasterer is a tradesman who use"s a plastering trowel (a rectangular shaped tool with a handle on one side) to spread the mix evenly over the surface of a wall mostly outside.A plasterer is sometimes referred to as "Spread".A good spread is an artist and commands respect or at least good money they,are few and far between.Other types of plaster are Gypsom,known as bonding a rough rough thick consistancy plaster for indoors main walls.Load bearing walls,these are made from brick,or modern walls are block.When the walls are prepared cleaned and applied with uni-bond in water,then bonded with gypsum(originally a laten word to describe a soft white plaster, it allways looked pink to me,except plaster of paris another application).When the bonding is dry a finish coat of wall finish is applied.Wall finish is or was in my day mixed in a bucket of water ,then put in the plaster and mix it with a "podger"sounds like something rude ,a two and half foot long metal pole with handle at one end and at the other around shaped with four spars inside the circle.This was pushed up and down,and turned right and left simultaneusly,you did this until the mix was just right.When the spread said"thats a grand cake nora" it was o k otherwise you could find your self walking down the road(meaning you are sacked).Lately plasterboard is used more freqently in new house"s.A eight by four foot slab of plaster board,is nailed on battons of two by one inch rough wood itself nailed to the wall with masonary nails.This can be done with a hilty gun.The boards are taped at the joins with " scrim"or paper tapecovered with board finish.This is then plastered with a finish coat of board finish,when dry it can be painted.There is one other type of plaster thats used to stick plasterboards to a wall prepared without battons.Its called hard wall adhesive it looks a bit like bonding only stronger you throw blobs on to the wall and apply the board,pushing firmly and evenly.when dry "scrim" then plaster your wall finish.I am not keen on this last method as there are too many things that can go wrong.The wall may not have been prepared enough and the whole process could unravel leaving a mess to sort out.In conclusion there are a few types of board some have foil back to combat damp ,and I did not include cealings in my little chat,they are not diffucult to deal with asthey mostlytake plasterboard,some types of ceiling must be double slabed(a slab is a board) for fire regulations,otherwise they are straight forward.Soon I hope to talk about moldings and arctraves ect.....ect.See ya all soon Dave.